As stated in the U.S. Pat. No. 2,778,586: "Supersonic airplanes must, in the highest degree possible, be of correct streamline shape and extremely smooth as to exterior contour." Heretofore, as seen in this patent and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,114,526 and 3,334,846 the prior art has had a fixation about a fixed crew station that is faired to the airplane structure by movable fairings that in one attitude will streamline the outward lines of the airplane to the height of the crew station and/or permit a more exposed canopy/windscreen during nonsupersonic regimes of operation of the airplane.
It has also been shown to be an intent of the prior art from the reading of U.S. Pat. No. 2,142,997 that an airplane be provided with a variable windscreen contour coordinated with variable attitude seating that during the greater part of flight is retractable to be completely flush with the surface of the airplane structure during which the crew seats are in their lowermost position to lower drag while affording adequate forward and up vision for such flight regime. In this particular patent a transparent structure is proposed to be essentially in the high-speed regime of flight a roof for the fuselage and which because of the three-point hinging is capable of extending to a more familiar windscreen cabin enclosure providing adequate downward vision for the landing of the aircraft. It is also to be noted that the intent of this patent is to raise and lower the crew seating provision as the transparent structure's profile changes. Other prior art examples of ways to vary canopy/windscreen protuberance may be observed in the German Pat. No. 747,095 published in the United States on June 7, 1946 and Italian Pat. No. 358,223 published Apr. 9, 1938.
The prior art is also illustrative of the manually operated rack and pinion device for raising and lowering a canopy/windscreen for an airplane. This is shown in British Patent No. 446,134 published Apr. 24, 1936. In this patent it is also suggested that the gap between the windscreen and the fuselage may be closed when the windscreen is in its down position by a sliding structure (not shown).